News
November 10, 2009.
Good Food Nation. MIT News featured the UDL's National Integrated Foodshed project in the article "Good Food Nation." This research is in partnership with MIT's Collaborative Initiatives Program.
November 8, 2009.
National Collaborations. The Urban Design Lab is participating in a series of ongoing national initiatives with the Action Center to End World Hunger, Earth Pledge Foundation, Fast Forward Fund, and Health Corps, USA, geared to enhance awareness of students, children and the general public on the themes of sustainability, climate change, health, food and fair trade.
November 2, 2009.
Ultra-X. Through the award of an Ultra-X grant from the National Science Foundation and US Dept. Of Agriculture Forest Service, the UDL is collaborating with Columbia University colleagues and many community partners on a project aimed at monitoring the neighborhood scale intersections between residents, the improved urban "green," green roof performance, and the impact of improved urban natural ecosystems. Columbia University collaborators include colleagues in the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO), the Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science, Center for Research on Environmental Decisions (CRED), LDEO Dept of Earth and Environmental Science (DEES), the Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation (GSAPP), the Center for Climate Systems Research (CCSR), the Department of Ecology Evolution and Environmental Biology (E3B).
October 28, 2009.
CDC National Environmental Public Health Conference. Michael Conard, assistant director of the UDL, presented “Redesigning the Food System for Public Health and Sustainability” at the Center for Disease Control’s National Environmental Public Health Conference. This event, which took place October 26-28 in Atlanta, was organized to encourage innovative strategies for addressing existing and emerging environmental health issues and to provide a forum for sharing research and information. The presentation shared the UDL’s recommendations to effect change in national health and the environment though the creation of a national integrated system of regional Foodsheds.
October 27, 2009.
Urban Futures. Richard Plunz, director of the UDL, participated in a discussion on possible urban futures with David Burney, Commissioner, NYC Department of Design and Construction (DDC) at “How Do We Design Successful Cities? Challenges and Solutions.” The event was sponsored by the New York Chapter of the American Institute of Architects (AIANY). The discussion compared the challenges currently facing cities in China with those of New York. Proceedings from the event, can be found here.
October 24, 2009.
Fit-Town Initiative. Since July, Michael Conard and Kubi Ackerman have been engaged in designing a community health awareness curriculum for the Fit-Town initiative of the Health Corps, USA. The curriculum calls for photo documentation and neighborhood mapping, and will be distributed in over 50 high schools across the country.
October 20, 2009.
Seoul Design Olympiad. The Urban Design Lab was invited to participate in the Seoul Design Olympiad in South Korea. This competition calls for designers from all over the world to explore projects related to sustainability in the city of Seoul. The exhibit content focuses on the theme Architecture: A User Manual. The UDL is displaying various projects related to four research themes: Food and the Urban Environment, Climate and Society, Green and Sustainable Infrastructure, and Education. Richard Gonzalez supervised the design of the UDL installation. The Olympiad is open to the public until October 29.
October 10, 2009.
T-Diversities. Maria Paola Sutto joined the T-Diversities Series in New York City, which explored issues related to urban sustainability, food and fair trade in celebration of the 2009 World Food Day. The T-Diversities series highlights concerns related to climate change, food and urban agriculture, architecture and design. Topics are explored through interactions between experts and thinkers, visual and performing artists, social activists and the general public.
October 9, 2009.
Park(ing) Day. Richard Gonzalez participated in New York City’s Park(ing) Day with an installation in Washington Heights, an event that involved participants in 100 cities around the world. Richard Gonzalez teamed up with fruit and vegetable vendors to create mini urban farm installations along metered parking spaces, selling fruits and vegetables along with an educational component. The annual international event invites participants to turn parking spots into “human-friendly places” for a day, with the goal of inspiring alternate visions of urban living and how cities divide common assets.
October 2, 2009.
Transcending The Discipline. Richard Plunz, director of the Urban Design Lab, recently spoke at Transcending The Discipline, the 5th International Urbanism and Urbanization PhD Seminar, held at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. Plunz was involved in discussions on highly innovative topics related to urban development on all five continents. The conference was organized by the University's Urbanism and Architecture Research Unit.
September 24, 2009.
Hancock and the Marcellus Shale: Gas Extraction along the Upper Delaware. The UDL announces its publication of Hancock and the Marcellus Shale: Visioning the Impacts of Natural Gas Extraction Along the Upper Delaware, fourth in a series of documents produced in conjunction with graduate level research seminars in the Urban Design program at the GSAPP. This research was made possible through sponsorship by the Open Space Institute, the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition and Catskill Mountainkeeper.
September 12, 2009.
Redesigning "Urban Green": Urban Ecology Studio. Engineering and Architecture students gathered for their first studio class, eager to meet the challenge of Nilda Mesa, Assistant Vice-President of Columbia University's Office of Environmental Stewardship, to start at home: how to make Columbia University produce 50% less waste, use 50% less energy, and consume 50% less water.
The pioneering studio is a highly integrated effort between the Urban Design Lab at the Earth Institute, the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, the Center for Research on Environmental Decisions, the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, the Center for Climate Systems Research, the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Biology, and a long list of significant community partners – all challenging each other with the goal of improving eco-system functionality in urban environments.
June 18, 2009.
Dongtan-2: A Premise for Urban Living. Richard Plunz and Richard Gonzalez of the UDL presented the preliminary research on the Dongtan 2 New Town Development Strategy to the Korean Planners Association and other advocacy groups in Seoul, South Korea. The project examines the second phase of the Dongtan master plan extension, the new town development projected to provide 113,000 housing units for a projected population of 282,000 habitants.
May 14, 2009.
The Streetscape of 145th Street. Across the United States, several urban and suburban areas show high carbon emissions attributed to transportation and residential uses. Even if New York City's density and transit system keep the city per capita emissions at low levels, carbon emissions sources remain a topic of concern. 145th Street is no exemption: a surface temperature map developed from the NASA-GISS research group led by Stuart Gaffin shows that there are several pockets of higher temperatures within the NYC area. The Urban Design Lab preparatory study was presented to the community in an attempt to divulge useful information and educate the residents about the challenges and opportunities that this area has to offer.
February 2, 2009.
Upper Delaware: Gas Drilling Impact Study. The Urban Design Lab is assisting in organizing and facilitating a research seminar with students from the Urban Design program and Environmental Law Clinic at Columbia University. Students will research and analyze the environmental constituents associated with the practice of gas drilling. This research initiative is in collaboration with the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition and the Open Space Institute.
The first meeting of the research team with local environmental organizations took place on Saturday January 31 at Lackawaxen, Pa. For more details click here
January 30, 2009.
January 20, 2009.
Urban Securities and Climate Change. Urban Climate Change Crossroads, edited by Richard Plunz and Maria Paola Sutto, has just been published. The book documents an international conference of the same name held in Rome in February 2008, sponsored by the UDL, the Adriano Olivetti Foundation in Rome, and the Rome Chamber of Commerce. Represented is a broad array of fields that must be called upon to address urban climate issues: from ecological science to political science; economics to philosophy to architecture; public health to public art. To order a copy click here
December 9, 2008.
Go Green East Harlem Studio: Food Security and Urban Agriculture. The final review of the GoGreen Studio course took place yesterday at the Columbia University campus. This senior design studio was coordinated with the Earth Institute’s Urban Design Lab and conducted by students and faculty from Columbia’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP) and School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS) in collaboration with the Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Office (MBPO) and the Go Green East Harlem Initiative. Twenty students from the GSAPP and SEAS presented their work to representatives from academia, local communities and government, triggering an interesting discussion about the role of design, and the different options that provides, in moving urban neighborhoods and cities toward a sustainable and healthy future.
The studio focus area was the neighborhood of East Harlem with the Go Green agenda as an over-arching theme. Architecture students identified the urban issues that they wanted to tackle and then developed specific strategies and design proposals that incorporated innovative and green infrastructure technology that their engineering partners explored. Among the proposals the “Ur_farm3” project questioned the current utopian vertical farming ideas and suggested a modular vertical/horizontal urban farming system that gives a central role to the communities. The “Urban Tech Forestry” project proposed an artificial form of urban forestry that seeks to enhance and compliment the capability and performance of existing natural urban trees.
Although the studio course has just finished, the Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer’s Office and the EI-UDL will now take a lead role in continuing discussions about how these ideas can work as an educational tool for Harlem communities and the City, and also as a framework for future strategies to integrate themes of sustainable healthy neighborhoods into urban development.
Faculty: Richard Plunz, Patricia Culligan, Dimitrios Vlachopoulos, Phillip Simmons, Melissa Keeley
Students: Jorge Barragan, Hernan Betanzos, Barrett Brown, Brett Dorfman, Saskia Nagel, Ayala Rosen, Andres Serpa, Patrick Alexander, James Banner, Jason Edwards, Amy Gao, Aja Hazelhoff, Prospero Herrera, Ivan Hibarger, Nicole Lee, Allison Magnano, Ramya Pratiwadi, Lauren Zielinski
December 3, 2008.
The Holiday Season. The beginning of the holiday season always brings to mind family, good food, and all the other things we have to give thanks for. Yet this year's rising food prices have served as a reminder that we should not take good food for granted, as many families must struggle to purchase healthy food. The conference "The Politics of Food" clearly responded to a city-wide demand for action on food policy, as more than 900 people registered to attend. The successful event brought together community organizations, green growers, urban farmers, elected officials, academics, and others concerned about food justice to discuss New York City's food system and how we might make it fairer, healthier, and stronger. During this holiday season, please consider donating to City Harvest or another organization that helps support struggling families.
Conference co-sponsor: Office of Manhattan Borough President, Urban Design Lab at The Earth Institute, School of International and Public Affairs, Office of Environmental Stewardship.
Speakers: President of Columbia University Lee C. Bollinger, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, New York City Mayor Bloomberg, President of the UN General Assembly Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, Director of the Center for Social Inclusion Maya Wiley
For a video click here
November 14, 2008.
Urban Securities and Climate Change. The Urban Design Lab just completed the book Urban Climate Change Crossroads. The book is an initiative of the Urban Design Lab to foster a new generation of thinking on the urban environment and climate change. Stemming from the project Urban Securities and Climate Change, the book calls on a broad array of fields to effectively address the global climate crisis.
The next initiative will be in Rome, April 2009, at Eco-Polis, where best practices and technologies for urban environment and sustainable cities will be presented and discussed.
November 12, 2008.
The Politics of Food: A Conference on New York’s Next Policy Challenge. On Wednesday, November 19, the Urban Design Lab at the Earth Institute (UDL), in partnership with Manhattan Borough President Scott M. Stringer, Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs and Office of Environmental Stewardship are presenting The Politics of Food: A Conference on New York’s Next Policy Challenge. The conference will be held in Columbia’s Alfred Lerner Hall with an introduction by Columbia President Lee Bollinger. Keynote speakers for this event include: Michael R. Bloomberg, Mayor of the City of New York; Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the UN General Assembly; and Maya Wiley, Director of the Center for Social Inclusion.
The Urban Design Lab has worked closely with the Manhattan Borough President’s Office to provide technical assistance and content recommendations for the conference. The UDL will organize the breakout session on “Urban and Local Food Farming,” together with the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture; Just Foods Inc.; and Added Value. This session, one of seven, will serve as a forum to present the history of urban and local farming, and global examples of emerging best practices. The Urban Design Lab will also use the session to facilitate audience discussion of obstacles and opportunities to further promoting local, urban, and peri-urban food.
Public response to the Conference has been overwhelming, with almost 700 requests to attend. The complete conference program may be found here.
October 1, 2008.
Curbing Childhood Obesity. The Summit presentation on October 1st was the culmination of the year-long Curbing Childhood Obesity research project. The UDL research team presented their findings and recommended action strategies for curbing childhood obesity to a group of experts including academics, medical professionals, policymakers, business leaders, and community groups. This working meeting elicited constructive feedback and new ideas through active discussion on the action strategies and the problem of childhood obesity in general. It also built a basis for future collaboration between the UDL-CI project team and the experts and community groups in attendance. The project team is incorporating feedback from the Summit into the final project report and proposal for Phase 2. To see the summit presentations, click here.
September 5, 2008.
Curbing Childhood Obesity. The Urban Design Lab and Collaborative Initiatives team in collaboration with Jim Tallon, President of the United Hospital Fund, convened a roundtable meeting to brainstorm new policy efforts to address childhood obesity in New York City and New York State. The roundtable was attended by New York City and State policy leaders from public health, agriculture, education, and health care. The Urban Design Lab presented a design-based analysis of this complex problem and Cathy Nonas, Director of the Physical Activity and Nutrition Program in the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, presented information on the innovative efforts in New York City to curb childhood obesity. These presentations generated discussion among the attendees, who agreed that the event successfully communicated the severity of the problem and the necessity of implementing comprehensive policy changes.
September 2, 2008.
A Citizen’s Guide to Residential Development. “A Citizen’s Guide to Residential Development” was released by the Upper Delaware Preservation Coalition (UDPC). The study and report was written by an Urban Design Research Seminar in the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation in collaboration with the Urban Design Lab and Open Space Institute (OSI). Richard Plunz, director of Urban Design Lab, oversaw the project.
The UDPC commissioned the study and report in response to unprecedented pressure for new development in Western Sullivan County and the Upper Delaware River Basin. The publication serves to facilitate and promote public awareness in the region regarding social and environmental impacts of local development plans. The process, procedure, and regulations surrounding development are analyzed together with five case studies. The Guide also highlights past successes and lessons learned from communities that have sought input on local development. Representatives from the Urban Design Lab presented their findings to the community at the second Green Earth Fair on September 13, 2008.
The Upper Delaware Basin serves as one of the largest drivers of tourism in upstate New York. Its appeal is derived from natural beauty and wildlife. Recently, however, American Rivers counted the Upper Delaware River among America’s most endangered rivers. For distribution information, contact UDPC.
August 12, 2008.
Curbing Childhood Obesity. The Urban Design Lab and Collaborative Initiatives team held two “Message and Measures” roundtables in New York on July 29th and August 12th, 2008. The research team organized these meetings because they had spoken with a number of successful local initiatives which had expressed the need for a coherent, consistent message and a set of measures to coordinate work on a national scale. The participants wanted a message to communicate the complex linkages between the food system and health to the public and a set of standardized measures through which change could be valued and assessed. Based on the discussions at the roundtables, the team has concluded that a national message should focus on prevention, reach the highest levels of government, emphasize the importance of limiting access to unhealthful foods while calling for universal access to fresh whole foods, and unite grassroots community organizations around common goals. The team has also recognized that a set of national measures must take into account behavioral changes, physiological changes, changes in the built environment, the food environment, the food system, local, state, and federal policy, and changes in the health care system.
May 19, 2008.
Curbing Childhood Obesity. The Urban Design Lab and Collaborative Initiatives team held the Childhood Obesity project’s second roundtable meeting on May 19th, 2008 in Des Moines, Iowa. The roundtable, “Food Systems, Sustainable Agriculture, and Childhood Obesity,” included twelve experts on obesity, food systems, and the relationship of health to agriculture. These experts engaged in a discussion with the UDL and CI team about state-level policy interventions in the interconnected issues of agriculture, nutrition, health, and the environmental impact of current practices.
April 15, 2008.
Curbing Childhood Obesity. After an initial phase of extensive data collection and interviews with prominent researchers in the field the Urban Design Lab Childhood Obesity team is stepping in a new phase of physical exploration of the range of existing pilot programs and initiatives. The team is looking at evaluating and incorporating the wide range of developing experiences into future possible operative models.
The research team recently completed a trip to New Orleans, LA, to see firsthand the efforts being made there to create healthier communities. Team members met with representatives from the New Orleans Food and Farm Network, the Prevention Research Center at Tulane University, Second Harvest of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana, Holy Cross Neighborhood Association, and the Louisiana Public Health Institute. The team was very impressed with the range of comprehensive initiatives aimed at mitigating obesity, improving public health, and developing alternative, sustainable food systems. The UDL looks forward to incorporating insights gleaned from this visit into its ongoing Curbing Childhood Obesity Project.
April 11, 2008.
Urban Design Lab and the Design Equation. Professor Richard Plunz and a group of researchers from the Earth Institute’s Urban Design Lab discussed in front of a very attentive audience the goals of the newly created lab and its ongoing projects. The Lab research of the last two years was described within the larger context of growing importance of design methodologies; the importance of integrating the knowledge between different schools was exemplified in various initiatives starting from the collaboration between architecture and engineering.
Professor Patricia Culligan described the UDL teaching support, involving joint design studios between architecture and engineering; the new amalgam of academic research and business around environmental technologies; and the implications for new academic initiatives in universities everywhere.
March 15, 2008.
Congestion Pricing Impact Study. The project is a collaboration with WE ACT for Environmental Justice and the Center for Sustainable Urban Development at the Earth Institute, and is funded by the Ford Foundation.
February 4, 2008.
Climate Change at the Crossroads. International Symposium on climate change in urban areas, Rome, February 4-5, 2008.
December 11, 2007.
Curbing Childhood Obesity. The Urban Design Lab and Collaborative Initiatives team held the Childhood Obesity project’s first roundtable meeting, “Identifying Root Causes of Childhood Obesity,” on December 11th, 2007 at Columbia University. Four experts participated in a discussion about the research team’s preliminary findings and potential for future for interventions. The discussion topics were focused on the root causes of childhood obesity, including prenatal factors, early childhood development, and the influence of socioeconomic status.
October 5, 2007.
Curbing Childhood Obesity. This 14 month project, launched September 2007, will be conducted with Collaborative Initiatives at MIT. The research is funded by United Health Foundation. more